On heels of Rustlewood Farm effort, KLT tackles Brave Boat

Saturday

Aug 31, 2013 at 2:00 AM

KITTERY, Maine — The Kittery Land Trust, fresh from its first major fund-raising effort at Rustlewood Farm, has now embarked on an equally significant challenge — raising money to purchase a 60-acre Brave Boat Harbor Road parcel.

Deborah McDermott

KITTERY, Maine — The Kittery Land Trust, fresh from its first major fund-raising effort at Rustlewood Farm, has now embarked on an equally significant challenge — raising money to purchase a 60-acre Brave Boat Harbor Road parcel.

The KLT announced Thursday night that it had signed a purchase and sale agreement with Stone Meadow LLC, owned by developer Joseph Falzone of Stratham, N.H.

Falzone has plans to build a 27-lot subdivision that would front Brave Boat Harbor Road near the York town line. These plans would continue if the land trust is unsuccessful in its bid to purchase the property by Sept. 30. A closing is set for Dec. 2.

On Friday, KLT Director Christine Bennett provided a few more details about the plans, although she said she is precluded by agreement with Falzone from divulging the cost.

She said Falzone's offer was "fair," adding "we both agreed on a price and we agreed on a quick purchase because that affected the price."

She said the process the land trust will go through in the next 30 days is similar to an individual securing a mortgage. The group will need to find "up-front capital and initial pledges" for the down payment. It then anticipates borrowing the remainder from a conservation financing foundation.

She said such foundations act, in essence, as banks, loaning money at a fixed interest rate.

"We've had some commitments" of initial funding already, "and we've had some indications that lenders would look favorably on this."

A big reason is because of where the land is located. According to Bennett, the property is in the middle of 850 unfragmented acres, the largest area of undeveloped land in Kittery.

It is also situated next to the Rachel Carson National Wildlife Refuge and is at Brave Boat Harbor.

She said because the KLT would be loaned the money for the purchase, it anticipates a quick, one-year fund-raising effort to pay back the money and own the property outright.

She said there are hopeful signs that much of the cost of the purchase could be covered through grants. The Land for Maine's Future is expected to receive as much as $15 million in bonds by the first of the year. Moreover, the Kittery, York and Great Works Regional land trusts are waiting to hear if they have jointly received a $1 million state wetlands grant.

The Stone Meadows purchase will be lead by the KLT in conjunction with the Mount Agamenticus to the Sea Coalition of local, state and federal agencies that work to preserve land in the Mt. A region.

"We'll be the ones executing the purchase, but we will all work together" to help raising the funds, Bennett said.

Still, she admits the next months are going to be challenging. The final purchase of the agricultural easement on Rustlewood Farm on Wilson Road is set to occur in November. Federal, state, local, nonprofit and individual funds were used for that purchase.

"In some ways, Rustlewood Farm gave us confidence that we can tackle large and complicated projects," she said. "In other ways, (the Stone Meadow deal) gave us pause because it came so quickly on the heels of the earlier project."

She said, however, "my sincerest hope is that this is going to go forward."

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